As Vancouver Opera closes out its 2022-2023 season it has announced the performances coming in the 2023–2024 season. With Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman wrapping the current season with performances April 29, May 4 and May 7, audiences won’t have to wait long in anticipation of the new season.
The Vancouver Opera 2023-2024 season begins in October with Mozart’s The Magic Flute, followed by Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in February 2024. The season comes to a close with Bizet’s much-loved opera Carmen for five performances in April and May 2024.
“We are excited to present an incredible season of opera “classics” to expose our great art form to new audiences,” said Tom Wright, Vancouver Opera General Director. “Two of the operas have not been seen in over a decade and one has only been produced once in our 64-year history. Each of our productions feature returning directors who wowed VO audiences in the past and understand the magic and passion that courses through these stories. We are excited to be presenting these spectacular productions that burst with colour and energy, reach the very core of our humanity and illicit passion, smiles and tears with their sweeping compositions.”
Opening the 2023–2024 season is The Magic Flute by Mozart, directed by Ashlie Corcoran (The Barber of Seville, February 2020) and making her VO debut is Conductor Tania Miller. This opera is a fairytale within a fairytale, immersing the audience in a magical, wild journey of high drama and whimsical delight.
In February, dive into a 20th-century Technicolour makeover of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale by acclaimed creative duo of costume/set designer André Barbe and director/choreographer Renaud Doucet (La Bohème). This all-Canadian production features Maestro Jacques Lacombe returning to Vancouver Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) to conduct Donizetti’s finely-calibrated music in this comic masterpiece.
Concluding the season is one of the most beloved and widely performed works in operatic history, Carmen by Georges Bizet. This passionate story is told through seductive arias and enduring, richly coloured melodies. Rachel Peake returns to Vancouver Opera (The Pearl Fishers) to direct Carmen alongside conductor Leslie Dala (The Flying Dutchman) for a five-show engagement.
Adds Wright, “together, the storybook enchantment of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a vivid pop art reimagining of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and the fiery passion of Bizet’s Carmen make for a season of grand scale, dazzlingly immersive experiences.”
Throughout the year, Vancouver Opera will also present several special events including Opera in the Park on Sunday, July 16. This is a free, family-friendly event will find audiences will be entertained with an evening of duets, arias and more led by Music Director Emeritus Jonathan Darlington at Burnaby’s Deer Lake Park.
In partnership with re:Naissance Opera and H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, the world premiere of Sanctuary & Storm will take place November 17 – 19 opening IndieFest 2023. An imagined debate between the two most powerful women in Medieval Europe—Hildegard of Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of the Normans—frames this striking new chamber opera by award-winning composer Tawnie Olson and librettist Roberta Barker. With the omniscient Angel of History acting as commentator, the brilliant and unconventional women struggle with how to move beyond the oppression of patriarchal society, but risk losing sight of their common goal: a world reborn.
Vancouver Opera continues its community engagement with its work in schools, arts organizations, and community groups. Vancouver Opera in Schools brings fully-staged operas to children and families throughout British Columbia. Project Opera sees students working with VO artists and teachers to design and deliver their very own opera.
From spring 2024, Vancouver Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria will remount their co-production of The Flight of the Hummingbird, and resume a school tour across the province. The opera is based on an Indigenous parable from the Quechuan people of South America. The opera is influenced by the graphic novel written by acclaimed Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas and includes elements of his dramatic Haida-manga illustrations. In it, the animals of the forest are inspired to come together by Dukdukdiya, the Hummingbird, to save their beautiful home from a raging fire.
For more information about the 2023–2024 Vancouver Opera Season, including ticket on-sale dates and subscription details, visit vancouveropera.ca.